Disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi

The MRN has observed with grave concern the inability of the Saudi authorities in Riyadh or in the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul to explain the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Khashoggi has been a critic of the Saudi regime’s reform program, planned and plotted by eccentric Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS). He has opined that there is no room for intellectual debate in Saudi society with almost all intellectuals and journalists jailed for questioning government policies. In his writings for the Washington Post, the Saudi commentator slammed Saudi policies towards Qatar and Canada, the war in Yemen, and a crackdown on dissent and the media in the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia continues to spring surprises and fan the flames of conflict in the region, as though the wars in Syria, Yemen, Libya and Iraq are not enough. After detaining Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri and forcing him to resign, it has begun exchanging intelligence information with Israel in order to confront Iran.

The present impasse between Turkey and the Saudi regime regarding the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi will certainly increase the political temperature in the region. It also portrays Muhammed Bin Salman as a political gambler who is determined to destabilise the Arab world.

The Media Review Network urges the Saudi authorities who claim that the journalist is not inside the Saudi embassy, to provide substantiated evidence to this assertion. Some reports have also suggested that Khashoggi might have been murdered and his body removed from the embassy. If this be the case, the burden of responsibility rest more heavily on the Saudi Authorities to clear the air of any doubt and misgivings and avoid speculation.